Source: XINHUA
UNITED NATIONS, April 17 (Xinhua) — Recent reports from the field of Western Sahara say the region has been relatively quiet during the past year, a UN envoy said here Tuesday.
Hany Abdel-Aziz, the special representative for the UN secretary-general on Western Sahara, made the statement as she was briefing the UN Security Council on Western Sahara.
“With the exception of deadly clashes in Dakhla in September 2011, and the abduction of three international aid workers in October 2011,” the area of operation of the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO) has been “relatively quiet over the past year,” Susan Rice, the U.S. UN ambassador who holds the rotating council presidency for April, told reporters here, citing the report from Abdel-Aziz.
As head of MINURSO’s operations, Abdel-Aziz outlined the challenges faced, and reported on the decrease of “overall violations of the military agreement over the course of the year by all parties,” said Rice.
Meanwhile, the UN secretary-general’s personal envoy, Ambassador Chris Ross, updated the council on the “three rounds of informal talks he’s held over the past year which showed parties’ willingness to continue to meet,” Rice said, adding that the most recent talk held in March led to further informal meetings by all parties within the next few months.
Ross is expected to make an initial, and extensive visit to the Western Saharan region in May, to which the council welcomed the efforts set forth by the UN envoy to assist all involved in ” achieving a just, lasting and mutually acceptable political solution,” said Rice.
Fighting began between Morocco and the Frente Polisario after the end of the Spanish colonial administration of Western Sahara in 1976.
Morocco has previously presented a plan for autonomy, however the Frente Polisario believe the status of the territory should be decided in a referendum on self-determination that includes independence as an option. Both parties have met with the envoy in March in New York.
